It seems that being sued by Big Pharma is vogue if articles in the BMJ and from the CSPI’s weekly Integrity in Science email are anything to go by.

Nancy Olivieri is being sued again by Apotex, who manufacture deferiprone. Olivieri is a haematologist at the University of Toronto who became prominent in 1996 when, during a drug trial of deferiprone she was conducting, she spoke out, saying that she thought it was harming patients. Apotex invoked a confidentiality clause in their agreement with Olivieri threatening to sue her if she published any results or even told patients the drug they were taking could be harmful. The University of Toronto refused to intervene, some critics have said because it was negotiating sponsorship of a new building with Apotex. After several inquiries, Olivieri was vindicated and a 2004 settlement between her and Apotex was agreed. Four years later, a judge has ordered Apotex to abide by all the terms of the settlement, including paying Olivieri $800,000. Apotex are now challenging the ruling, claiming that Olivieri has broken the terms of the settlement which were not to disparage each other, by being involved in public speaking about the saga and having a Wikipedia entry.

Meanwhile, on this side of the pond, caridologist Peter Wilmshurst is being sued by NMT Medical, the US manufacturers of the STARFlex septal repair implant. Wilmshurst was part of the team conducting the MIST trial, the negative results of which were published in Circulation (doi: 10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.107.727271). Wilmshurst went onto give an interview to a cardiology website in which he criticised the recruitment of the trial and said that he said seen data from it that were “internally inconsistent and mathematically impossible”. Wilmshurst and another cardiologist from the Royal Shewsbury Hospital turned down co-authorship of the study as they were not allowed to see the complete dataset. NMT Medical considers his comments defamatory and untrue and has launched a High Court action, writes Clare Dyer in the BMJ (doi: 10.1136/bmj.a2412). Wilmshurst is not being supported by either his employer, who received money for conducting the trial, or the Medical Defence Union.

Help has been forthcoming though from HealthWatch, a UK-registered charity, the aims of which include the development of good practices in the assessment and testing of treatments and the conduct of clinical trials. In an update published in the BMJ (doi: 10.1136/bmj.a2822), a fund has been set up with a donation of £5000 to help Wilmshurst defend himself against NMT Medical’s libel action. Wilmshurst won a HealthWatch award in 2003 for “his courage in challenging misconduct in academic medical research”. More details and how to donate to the fund can be found on the HealthWatch website.